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Sunday mornings at the river

Rebecca Rijsdijk

Sunday Mornings at the River is something to sit down with in a quiet place, or perhaps close company. The ‘nomadic publishing press’ specialise in small print photography publications.

In each zine there is real warmth within the pages; evidence of something made with love and something else, like the sweat or dirt that belongs to another place, somewhere far beyond our respective city streets.

We chatted with founder Rebecca Rijsdijk about adventure and photography, dreaming big and taking every opportunity to follow through.

“We are capable of great things when we cut out all the excuses and really put our mind to something”

Above images: Kellen Mohr

AHB: How and when did Sunday Mornings at the River come about?

Rebecca: To be absolutely honest with you, Sunday Mornings was born out of an unfulfilled feeling I had with the art world as I came in contact with it during my time at art school. I couldn’t relate to it at all. I got frustrated listening to our teachers talking about the commercially fuelled futures they had planned for us, so after I graduated I did the only thing we could do really and that was to create a world of my own. It took me a while to realize that I could bottle up all my frustration and anger and pour it into something new, something positive.

I felt very strongly about my ideals of creating art for art’s sake, and not for commercial gain or an ego boost; creating a positive environment where instead of competing people would work together, share knowledge and dream a little bigger. I started Sunday Mornings at my attic on a rainy day, dreaming about a life on the road and cabins in the mountains.

When I first started I had no idea what I was doing. I picked a name after doodling some sentences on a piece of paper, not knowing it would be so appropriate for the zine I wasgoing to publish a year later, together with my friend Sanne Poppeliers. A Sunday morning at the river represents an ideal Sunday to me. I used to sit at a tiny stream that runs through my hometown, drinking beer with my friends, watching the dogs bathe. No bills to pay, no boring day jobs to go to, just the company of the people I love and the grass between my toes.

We shaped the first two issues of the magazines and after Sanne left to become a biologist, shaped it into the nomadic publishing house it is today. I’ve been running it alone for most of the time, but recently got the amazing Vicky Schilperoort and Rebeca Scurtu on board to produce online content, started to work with my brilliant documentary making friend Roberto Rubalcava on some socially orientated projects, and have Idle magazine (let’s drop some names shall we creator Chloe Firrel-Ray to help out with some of the design work.

Above images (top to bottom): Theo Gosselin, Misma Andrews

What does a nomadic publishing house involve exactly?

Because I ran SmatR on my own for so long, it was an extension of myself. When I turned thirty I had dreamed about leaving my home to live a life on the road for too long and it was time to actually turn my dreams into actions. It took me a while to come up with the courage to leave my job, give away my furniture, but in the end I did just that, kissed my mum goodbye and packed my bags to live a nomadic life for a little while. That little while turned into more than 1,5 years of drifting between places, taking photos and sending zine orders out from my backpack. I only recently settled in London where I am currently setting up an underground gallery and pop up shop near Broadway Market. I still feel like a nomad and travel as much as I can, but I am glad that the zines have a shelf to live on now. To cut a long story short, a nomadic publishing house is just another word for being a logistical nightmare

It took me a while to come up with the courage to leave my job, give away my furniture, but in the end I did just that, kissed my mum goodbye and packed my bags to live a nomadic life for a little while.

What’s your idea of adventure?

Adventure for me is movement. I can’t think of anything worse than to be stuck in a place for too long. I need to move, to meet new people, to eat new food. I need to not know what is around the corner. A good adventure to me is a combination of mindblowing hikes, good chats around the campfire and going home with experiences you’d never think you would have. I love the unexpected. Like when I set out to walk the Camino to Santiago on my own, walking on an old pair of sneakers with a backpack that had seen better days, but the utter conviction that I would finish the 800km walk on just my goodwill and intentions. I ended up with an international family of likeminded souls, a pair of shoes hanging from the trees during one of our siesta’s and a replacement backpack in a bush that carried me over the mountains until we got to a town to fix my own. I love stuff like that. Good stories that you wouldn’t be able to make up if you would sit behind your computer, no matter how imaginative your brain is.

Above images: Jeff Luker, Theo Gosselin

What kind of relationship does something like photography, or creativity, have with the outdoors?

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it. Creativity is tied to anything that makes you tick. In my case it is the outdoors.

Can you tell us about a highlight from your own adventures or documented with Sunday Mornings at the River?

The trip to Santiago de Compostela I took was amazing. Not only because I found decent hiking boots up a tree and and a backpack in the bushes, but because of the friendships that were made during that walk. We shared food, blister patches and fatigue with each other every day, total strangers bonded over a relatively short period of time. I am happiest when I walk, moving forward without any mechanical tools, just your two feet on the blistering Spanish soil every day, walking from France across the border and then some more really made me feel accomplished. I am working together with some of the people I met on the road to Santiago to build a school in Nepal, another trip I undertook last year and a new project for Sunday Mornings at the River. All the trips I go on result in a zine for Sunday Mornings at the River, or at least some travel stories on the website.

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it.

What’s the best part of being involved in a project like this?

I feel very passionate about featuring people that find creative ways to travel the world, because my biggest excuse for postponing to leave my own home for so long, was ‘I don’t have the money to travel’ and I hear a lot of people say the same. We try to feature people that inspire us to push harder in realizing our dreams. If they can do it on a budget, by joining a scholarship program or teaching English, why can’t we? So the best part of being involved in a project like this is seeing dreams turning into actions really. All the people we interview remind me that we are capable of great things when we cut out all the excuses and really put our mind to something.

Above images: Brian Bielawa

Can you tell me a little about the recent project you were working on, the Annapurna Zine?

Annapurna is a zine filled with my photographs from the trip to Nepal I went on in November last year. It was a beautiful adventure and I made a lot of local friends, some of whom I am still in contact with. I dream big and talked to my friend Suman about building school in his town before the earthquakes hit. When we heard about the earthquakes we decided the time for dreaming was over and started working on a fundraiser. I teamed up with Suman, but also with my camino friends Ellen and Mark and my Sunday Mornings workmate Roberto to create a campaign. We all bring our own strength to the table, I know nothing about finances or running a charity, but I can print zines and that is exactly what I did with Annapurna. Our print buddies over at De Resolutie were so kind to sponsor the printcosts, so every pound we make on the zine goes directly to the Indiegogo campaign we are about to publish. This, to me, is what makes photography such a beautiful medium. It gives us the means to combine art with social care, and I couldn’t ask for a more beautiful combination than that.

What kind of potential do you see for the publishing house in the future?

My ambitions and dreams are endless, so I will just keep on creating and hope for the best. Can’t really help myself anyway, every time I think about quitting, I come back to it. Like the itch for adventure, creating and publishing is in my blood.

It seems to me that this is the golden age of amateur photography. How do professionals, that is those who are committed documentary, editorial, photojournalists, how do we go about telling stories that are convincing and compelling in a visually saturated environment?

National Geographic photographer Sam Abell has defined his career with patience. There is no dull section of a Sam Abell photograph, the frame is layered from back to front with compelling imagery. This can be a slow process, it can take days, weeks, or in some cases months for the right opportunity to present itself.

There were many rafts over the course of the four years and all were built with salvaged materials. The construction boom happening in NYC in the mid-2000s provided a lot of scrap material that we pulled from dumpsters.

I love the unexpected, uncontrollable moments that just happen. That’s why I suppose spontaneity is really the crux of the best art I’ve done. That, and I just really love the process of making things.

There are countless stories that tell of a young man, lost and uncertain, who sets out on a whirlwind adventure and figures out who he really is. It is a sad reality that amongst the great classic adventure stories, very few (if any) of the protagonists are female.

I perceive my photographic work through a director’s eyes, however, the difference in my vision, is that the whole world is a stage. It’s an intense sensation of “limitless”. I like to recreate a fantastic universe of dreams and travels.

Arriving back in Marrakech, I felt like I had truly been to outer space and back; I felt like I had seen landscapes that could not exist on our planet. I felt like I had stepped both back and out of time and had seen and briefly experienced a different way of living, of one without time and without fear.

Photography is a fiction. It’s a frame of a film which hasn’t been made, or a line from a forgotten poem. I always create in camera as much as possible, because it is also about the experience of what is in front of you at the time.

It’s surprising to see a lot of people’s living spaces of a certain age – what they surround themselves with and how they decorate their houses. They’re like living museums. It’s often an incredible level of chaos and madness that they live amongst

I use that same word when I talk about travel – luxury. It’s such a white man’s headache you know, like, it’s not hard. People say “How did you do that? That’s so hard.” And I think, “Well there are some cold days, some warm days, you know..” But it’s my own choice, and it’s a privilege entirely.

Porter Yates is a photographer, and Dan Melamid is a director. They have been friends for many years, and both share a passion for travel and visual storytelling. Through Witness.Earth they have collaborated to develop a new style of photographic presentation to music.

Thematically, (Katrin’s) work is concerned with ideas of Australian regional and remote communities in socio-economic transition in the 21st century; experientially, it is an exploration of photographer’s familiarity with her new home country.

Wild & Precious brings together treasures from a series of road trips travelled over 5 years by photographer Jesse Burke and his daughter Clover. It’s a reminder that exploration is timeless, and infinite, as should be the wild.

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it… I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

My driving force is to discover places and creations that I personally find intriguing. As for what I’m trying to communicate to an audience, it is a more focused critical perspective, something that I will develop over time.

While cycling about in remote South Australia Tom was bitten on the neck by a reback spider and, after suffering through the night, made it to hospital the following day to be dosed up on two bags of anti-venom. Another time, while hiking Tasmania’s magnificent Overland Track through constant rainfall, a leech found its way quietly into his mouth.

At the age of 22, Larry Niehues packed his bags and headed to Mcallen in south Texas. Following the footsteps of Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston and Dennis Hopper, he embarked on his own great American road trip.

I struggle a little bit with my attraction to old things, but I like small towns and they are usually a little behind the times. At least landscapes are timeless. I can’t be accused of nostalgia when photographing nature.

Ittoqqortoormiit is one of the most insulated towns in the world. Far away from all touristic highways and only accessible by helicopter. Two supply ships a year, and if you forget to lodge a request you must wait six more months for this.

I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them.

Maybe in some of these places there has never been human presence, I access them with my kayak or by boat. Sometimes I’m lucky, and I go alone, sometimes I go with my groups. Either way I’m very lucky, I can see other worlds within this world. I’m very lucky to experience this.

We want to make people aware about how difficult the living and working conditions in certain parts of the world can be, the fact that not everybody was born into the bright side of life but also that travelling to far away places is possible – through photographs.

The Family Acid sounds something like an adult swim cartoon, but the truth is so much more awesome. They are in fact responsible for some of the most visually intriguing and detailed documentation of the counter cultural movement of the 1970’s on, out of the U.S and beyond.

That was a life changing time with two wonderful women and their amazing father who are dear friends of mine. They are sailors but it was a first for me to be out at sea for two weeks. The best way to explore any coast on a magic carpet ride!

It was an amazing, incredible sight to see hundreds of people on this beach. The horses went in first, four or five horses into the water, then the saints were immersed, and then everybody else went in after that to take the ritual bath.

I make an effort to let everyone I photograph know what I’m up to. I want them to understand where I am coming from. I think when they meet me they realise I’m not out to expose or judge them. Who am I to expose something or someone anyway?

This series is the first time I’ve ventured into photojournalism. The opportunity fell into place; I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wasn’t prepared for the evident increase in poaching and anti-poaching activity this time around, and that was a shock. It’s a strange series to reflect on.